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11. The ruling at the end of the above quote is the translation of: “na, bhikkhave, buddhavacanaṁ chandaso āropetabbaṁ. Yo āropeyya, āpatti dukkaṭassa. Anujānāmi, bhikkhave, sakāya niruttiyā buddhavacanaṁ pariyāpuṇitun”ti.
- Thus, it is pretty clear that the Buddha made it an offense to express Buddha Dhamma in Sanskrit. He also clearly allowed the teaching of Buddha Dhamma to people “in their own dialect” (sakāya niruttiyā). Here “sakāya niruttiyā” means “explaining the meanings in their dialect.”
It mentions that “the Buddha made it an offense to express Buddha dhamma in Sanskrit”. Does this mean that pretty much any / all languages can be used to express the Buddha dhamma besides Sanskrit?
Or if someone used any Sanskrit to explain or express the Buddha dhamma, that would be an offense even if it’s their own dialect. Is this correct?
The 2 questions that I just asked is something that I’m not completely sure about, but something that I’m completely sure about is that chanting the Buddha dhamma in Sanskrit is 100% an offense. Why I’m so sure about chanting the Buddha dhamma in Sanskrit is for sure an offense is because back a few months ago, I looked / investigated some into the Sanskrit language and Chandas.
– “Vedic Brahmins ignored the “phonetics” (sounds indicating meanings) and made-up “sophisticated sounding” words with “musical overtones.
– “One can easily see the musical overtones in the “Sankritized” words”
From what I could understand from my investigation into the matter back a few months ago was that I ended up with the same conclusion about the possible sophisticated sounding and musical overtones in Sanskritized words. If this is the case, it’s definitely not the appropriate / suitable language to express or disseminate the Buddha dhamma because I have observed how by using Sanskrit has cause much distortions to the teachings of the Buddha dhamma, especially relating to chanting.
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I apologize for not responding to this comment; I saw it a little while ago while making the new thread. I somehow missed it (probably due to my traveling).
- By the way, the original post is “Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta – Distortion Timeline.”
- Please make sure to provide the link to the post in question.
Question: “It mentions that “the Buddha made it an offense to express Buddha dhamma in Sanskrit”. Does this mean that pretty much any / all languages can be used to express the Buddha dhamma besides Sanskrit?”
Yes. Sanskrit is a unique case that does not apply to any other language.
- Both Pali and Sanskrit evolved from a very ancient language that evolved into Magadhi (and got split into Pali and Sanskrit). The similarities can be easily seen.
- However, while both Magadhi and Pali kept the natural “phonetic words” (the meanings embedded in the words/sounds), Sanskrit words were artificially crafted to provide “musical overtones” and, in some cases, to make them deliberately complex. Only the high-class priests were supposed to speak/write Sanskrit.
- Examples: kamma to karma, dhamma to dharma, Paticca Samuppada to Pratītyasamutpāda, etc. I have explained that “Paticca Samuppada” embeds the meaning: “Paṭicca Samuppāda – “Pati+ichcha” + “Sama+uppāda” It is not so with “Pratītyasamutpāda.”
- Another evident problem is discussed in #7 of the post itself: “Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta – Distortion Timeline. Sanskrit replaced the Pali words anicca and anatta with anitya and anatma, which have VERY different meanings. It will not be easy to explain the concepts of anicca and anatta in Sanskrit.
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